Melanie Kahn came up with the idea for a healthy lemonade when she was pregnant last year. Her "good for you" Poppilu lemonade is now sold in supermarkets all over metro Chicago.

Melanie Kahn, founder of Poppilu, with her children, Zachary, left, and Poppy, the startup's eponym

Melanie Kahn came up with the idea for a healthy lemonade when she was pregnant last year. Her "good for you" Poppilu lemonade is now sold in supermarkets all over metro Chicago.

CORRECTED

Last summer, entrepreneur Melanie Kahn walked into her neighborhood Jewel and asked the manager to stock Poppilu, an antioxidant-packed, low-sugar, all-natural, locally sourced lemonade she had created. By fall, her "good for you" beverage was in all 187 Jewel stores.

Kahn came up with the idea for a healthier lemonade when she was pregnant with her second child; she was craving its tart refreshment but dreaded the empty calories. Could she create an alternative?

A search led to Aronia, also known as chokeberry, a black-blue "superfruit" native to the Midwest and cultivated in Iowa. Aronia is a bitter fruit that gives Kahn's lemonade an antioxidant boost and its pink color. She formulated her product with two-thirds less sugar than typical lemonades, bottled it in pink and purple packaging and named it after Poppy, her now 1-year-old girl who had caused the craving.

Kahn, 40, caught the entrepreneurial bug working at Fairlife, a filtered-milk startup in the West Loop that is distributed by Coca-Cola, where she handled branding and marketing. She previously had worked in brand management at Kraft and at Sara Lee. Going solo allowed her to be her own boss, a situation she had sought since becoming a mother. "It was now or never. I wanted the challenge of a startup, and I wanted this sweet time in my children's lives." She spends mornings with her children (son Zachary is 3) and works well into the night.

By design, Kahn is limiting distribution to the Midwest; the distinctive 12-ounce bottles, at $2.49 apiece, come in three flavors and are also sold at Treasure Island, Mariano's and Plum Market. "I want to be close to market, close to stores," says Kahn. She has $250,000 in year-one sales; growth will come as Poppilu becomes a national brand and she extends the line.

Merchandisers are keen on Kahn's product. "It's hyperlocal and a healthy solution. The packaging is so well-done it jumps out of the section," says Donald Fitzgerald, Mariano's general vice president of merchandising and marketing. "It's one thing to get on shelf; with Melanie's background, we think it will stay on shelf."

Kahn, whose London childhood left her with the remnants of an English accent, is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she studied journalism before earning an MBA at Duke University. She and her husband, Sam Lichtenfeld, an attorney, live in the Gold Coast and spend free time with their children, walking and biking Chicago and playing tennis.

Kahn's is one of five startups—from a field of 200—chosen this year for the initial Kraft Heinz incubator, a 16-week accelerator that put Kahn in a community of entrepreneurs and gave her access to Kraft Heinz executives, data, consumer insight and R&D know-how. They helped her with inventory, packaging and sales.

"Melanie made the case: allowing people to love lemonade again," says Sergio Eleuterio, general manager of Kraft Heinz Springboard Brands. "It's an organic and personal story that's invaluable."

Editor's note: A previous version of this story misstated the ownership of Fairlife.